Art Watch: Cecil Beaton's 20th-Century Style

British photographer Cecil Beaton arrived in New York City at the height of the Jazz Age, and you could argue the city was never quite the same. His portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, *Harper's Bazaar *editor Diana Vreeland, and Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, helped to define and glorify the VIPs of society, fashion, and entertainment for half a century to come.

If this iconic imagemaker were alive today, he would probably have a reality TV show. That's the logical, if not literal, conclusion of an exhibition of Beaton's photos, sketches, and costume and set designs for Broadway and Hollywood (including the outrageously amplified Edwardian hats and gowns for My Fair Lady, for which he won an Oscar in 1964) now at the Museum of the City of New York.

It's the force of his charming but imperious personality that's the recurring theme here. To sit for one of Beaton's portraits destined for the pages of Vogue or Vanity Fair meant showing up at a makeshift studio in the string of luxury hotel suites he called home during his stays in New York—and for which he demanded a discount in return for the publicity he generated. Those who submitted to controlling kingmaker left with an image that cast them as earthly gods, like his pictures of Greta Garbo.

It's just as interesting—if not more so—when the fit wasn't right, especially with the dawn of street chic and the sexual revolution in the 60s and 70s. Beaton's portrait of Mick Jagger, circa 1970, is a soft blur, and he spent what seems to have been a most awkward day taking pictures at Andy Warhol's Factory, where the artist and his outlandish entourage stand around like they can't figure out what to do with their hands.

What you are left really wanting to see? The look of displeaure on Beaton's face. Cecil Beaton: The New York Years is on view at the Museum of the City of New York, 1220 Fifth Ave., New York, N.Y., until April 22.